Alternate Ending to Allegiant
by Changing Allegiance
Summary: For me Allegiant was a huge let down. Here is how I think the ending should have went, these paragraphs are not 100% my own, this is a retooling of Veronica Roth's writing, it contains passages and paragraphs of hers and original passages and paragraphs of mine intermingled. I am not claiming any of her work as my own.


For me the end of Allegiant was a huge let down… here is how I think the ending should have went, these paragraphs are not 100% my own, the whole this is a retooling of Veronica Roth's writing, it contains passages and paragraphs of hers and original paragraphs and passages of mine intermingled. I am not claiming any of her work as my own. This is merely my interpretation of her words in the final few chapters of Allegiant.

I hope you enjoy.

**TRIS**

Red. Blood is a strange color. Dark.

From the corner of my eye, I see David slumped over in his chair, his face is pale and the light gone from his eyes.

And my _mother_ walking out from behind him.

She is dressed in the same clothes she always wears, Abnegation gray. She's frozen in time. Her dull blond hair is tied back in a knot, but a few loose strands frame her face in gold.

I know she can't be alive, but I don't know if I'm seeing her now because I'm delirious from the blood loss or if the death serum has addled my thoughts or if she is here in some other way. She kneels next to me and touches a cool hand to my cheek.

"Hello, Beatrice," she says, and she smiles.

"Am I done yet?" I say, and I'm not sure if I actually say it or if I just think it and she hears it.

"No," she says, her eyes bright with tears. "My dear child, you've done so well, but there is one more thing you must do."

I smile and close my eyes, my mother's hand touches my face. I tear slides down my cheek and everything fates to black.

**TOBIAS**

Evelyn brushes the tears from her eyes with her thumb. As I finish telling her all that my father had done to us. We stand by the windows, shoulder to shoulder, watching the snow swirl past. Some of the flakes gather on the windowsill outside, piling at the corners. The memory serum worked and as I tell her if the uprising and of the new world outside she takes it all in her eyes glassy.

"I did all those things," she says, her eyes full of sadness, "oh Tobias; I've become a horrible person. What happened to me?"

I tell her it was a hard life with hard choices, not all of them right, but she had made the right one today, she decided that there will be a peace treaty between the Factionless and the Allegiant. She nods her head in agreement.

As I stare out at the world, dusted in white, I feel like everything has begun again, and it will be better this time.

Peter sits with his back to the wall in the hallway. He looks up at me when I lean over him, his dark hair stuck to his forehead from the melted snow.

"Did you reset her?" he says.

"Yes," I say.

"I didn't think you would have the nerve."

"It's not about nerve. You know what? Whatever." I shake my head and hold up the vial. "Are you still set on this?"

He nods.

I have him sit on one of the couches, and I ask him what he wants me to tell him about himself, after his memories disappear like smoke. He just shakes his head.

"Nothing."

He wants to retain nothing.

Peter takes the vial with a shaking hand and twists off the cap. The liquid trembles inside it, almost spilling over the lip. He holds it under his nose to smell it.

"How much should I drink?" he says, and I think I hear his teeth chattering.

"I don't think it makes a difference, "I say."

"Okay. Well . . . here goes." He lifts the vial up to the light like he is toasting me.

When he touches it to his mouth, I say, "Be brave."

Then he swallows. And I watch Peter disappear forever.

I look at him after splayed out on the couch, groggy in a dazed. I still see the initiate, who shoved a butter knife into Edward's eye, and the boy who tried to kill my girlfriend, and all the other things he has done, and I walk away, leaving him alone to find himself.

Evelyn and I walk side by side. The snow has stopped falling now, but enough has collected on the ground that it squeaks under my shoes.

We walk to Millennium Park, where the mammoth bean sculpture reflects the moonlight, and then down a set of stairs.

As we descend, Evelyn wraps her hand around my elbow to keep her balance, and we exchange a look. I wonder if she is nervous, I wonder how many of her new memories have taken hold.

Marcus and Johanna are already there. Johanna isn't holding a gun, but Marcus is, and he has it trained on Evelyn. I point the gun Evelyn gave me at him, just to be safe.

"Tobias!" Johanna says. She wears a coat in Amity red, dusted with snowflakes. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to keep you all from killing each other," I say.

My eyes train to the bulge in her coat pocket, I instantly recognize it as the contours of a weapon. Seeing my eyes she turns slightly away from Marcus, draw's a finger to her lips making a silent shhh as she nods her head so slowly back and forth that only I notice.

"We're not here to chat," Marcus says, looking at Evelyn. "You said you wanted to talk about a treaty."

"Yes," Evelyn says. "I have some terms for us both to agree to. I think you will find them fair. She looks at me and I nod in agreement. If you agree to them, I will step down and surrender whatever weapons I have that my people are not using for personal protection. I will leave the city and not return."

Marcus laughs. I'm not sure if it's a mocking laugh or a disbelieving one.

He's equally capable of either sentiment, an arrogant and deeply suspicious man.

"Let her finish," Johanna says quietly, tucking her hands into her sleeves.

"In return," Evelyn says, "you will not attack or try to seize control of the city. You will allow those people who wish to leave and seek a new life elsewhere to do so. You will allow those who choose to stay to vote on new leaders and a new social system. And most importantly, you, Marcus, will not be eligible to lead them."

"No deal," Marcus says. "I am the leader of these people."

"Marcus," Johanna says.

He ignores her. "You don't get to decide whether I lead them or not because you have a grudge against me, Evelyn!"

"Excuse me," Johanna says loudly.

"Marcus, what she is offering is too good to be true—we get everything we want without all the violence! How can you possibly say no?"

"Because I am the rightful leader of these people!" Marcus says. "I am the leader of the Allegiant! I—"

"No, you are not," Johanna says calmly, sliding the gun from her pocket touching it to Marcus's temple. "I am the leader of the Allegiant, now drop your weapon, and we can agree to the peace treaty, or I am going to take matters into my own hands. She looks at him calm and cool, "sometimes you have to take difficult measures to ensure peace, and that's what I set out to achieve and now it is what I will get."

Marcus's passive mask is gone; it is replaces by anger and shock.

"You'll never do it, the Amity are weak and frail, you're nothing!" Marcus turns the gun from Evelyn to Johanna, but before he gets half way a shot rings out. Marcus's body falls to the ground.

"I agree to your terms," Johanna says, and she holds out her hand over Marcus's limp body, her footsteps squeaking in the snow.

Evelyn removes her glove fingertip by fingertip, reaches across, and shakes.

"In the morning we should gather everyone together and tell them the new plan," Johanna says. "Can you guarantee a safe gathering?"

"I'll do my best," Evelyn says.

**TRIS**

My eyes open, my head thumping, and groggy, my shoulder and muscles sore; I had a horrible night's sleep. I try to shake the cloudiness from my head. I dress and walk down the hall.

"Happy Choosing Day!" My mother's voice rings out from the bathroom, "come in, come in…"

I sit down on the stool and my mother stands behind me with the scissors and a pair of clippers, trimming my hair. As the clipper buzzes up the back of my neck it all feels oddly familiar, but strangely different. As the hair falls to the floor, I realize my hair is much shorter, too short for the Abnegation.

"There," she says, sweeping the hair one to a pile, "so today is the day," she says.

"Yes," I reply.

"Are you nervous?"

"No."

"Right." She smiles. "Let's go eat breakfast."

"Thank you. For cutting my hair."

She nods, and we head to the kitchen. My father is sitting at the table with three plates of pancakes and bacon, Abnegation usually eats plan oatmeal for breakfast, but today is an exception, a celebration. I pour the maple syrup over them and the back of my mind tingles, like something is missing.

After breakfast my mother, father and I set off to the Choosing Ceremony. The streets are empty as I walk along quietly beside them.

We walk into the Hub and the tapping of our feet is the only sound. Past the bank of elevators we ascend cement stairs, falling into pace with on and other. We have to climb twenty flights of stairs to get to the Choosing Ceremony.

"Do you remember when I taught you how to knit," she says to me as we climb the steps to the twentieth floor. "Haste will not help you today. Remember that you are my daughter and I will love you no matter what choice you make"

My father smiles at me, "We love you Beatrice and you will make the right choice."

The three of us walk in the room; it is stark and bright arranged in five concentric circles. Rows of chairs line four of the sections, all empty no one else has arrived. My heart starts to race, something is wrong; this is not how the choosing ceremony is supposed to happen.

A man in long white robes enters the room and my mother and father take their places beside him. Several others enter the room all in white. I see their faces, and a flood of names fills my mind, Tori, Edward, Al, Uriah, Lynn.

In the last circle are two glass bowls. Each one contains a substance one white dove feathers and the other rich earth.

"Welcome Beatrice Prior," the man in the white robe says. "Welcome to your Choosing Ceremony. You stand on the precipice of a monumental decision, and it is now up to you to decide where you will go."

I walk to the center of the room, all their eyes on me as I stare at the bowls. I take one final glance at my mother her eyes light up.

"Beatrice," her voice is a whisper. "Whatever you choose, be strong, don't cry."

What will I choose, what does it all mean?

The man offers me my knife. Beside him, my parents are smiling with tears in their eyes. I look into his eyes they are filled with light and hope and peace. He nods slowly graciously, and I turn toward the glass bowls. I hold the knife in my right hand as I pierce the palm of my left, blood bubbles from the center of my hand. I close my eyes and thrust my arm out.

**TOBIAS**

"Where's Tris?"

"I'm sorry, Tobias."

"Sorry about what, tell me what happened!"

"Tris went into the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb," Cara says. "She survived the death serum, and set off the memory serum, but she . . . she was shot… the death serum and the bullet wounds… it was just too much for her… she's in a coma."

Of course Tris would go into the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb, of course she would.

I run down the hallway to hospital wing, to her room, looking through the window for only a brief moment, I see Caleb sitting beside her hold her hand, talking though I can't hear the words. I knock on the door and walk in.

"Hi," he says looking down at the floor. "I'm so sorry Tobias; I never met for this to happen. They don't think there is anything else they can do; they don't think she is going to wake up."

I start to breakdown; it's Uriah all over again, only this time it's the only person in the world that matters more than my own life.

"GET OUT," I scream, Caleb shudders, he stands and walks out the door.

I crawl into bed with her and nestle my head in her hair and cry, I cry until my stomach hurts, until my eyes are dry and bloodshot. And between the sobs I talk to her.

"Oh God Tris, you have to wake up, I need you here with me, I never told you this but I have loved you since you first hit that net. I pulled you across it and when I touched your hand so small, and warm, and you stood there looking at me, short and thin and plain and in all ways unremarkable—except that you had jumped first. The little blonde Stiff who was brave and fearless and captured my heart. Even I didn't jump first, in that very moment you became remarkable, and breathtaking, and beautiful."

In the days that follow, it's movement, not stillness, that helps to keep the thought of her never coming back at bay, so I walk the compound halls instead of sleeping, and when I do sleep I crawl into bed next to her limp body and drift off to the sounds of the ventilator. I watch everyone else recover from the memory serum that altered them permanently as if from a great distance.

"Tobias?"

I shudder at the sound of my name coming from his mouth, it's Caleb. I turn away from the voice, searching for an escape route.

"Wait. Please," he says. "It's time; they're going to unhook her today."

I don't want to look at him, to measure how much, or how little, he is going to grieve for her. And I don't want to think about how she'll die for such a miserable coward, about how he wasn't worth her life.

I go to see her one last time. Christina and I walk shoulder to shoulder; we walk in Cara's footsteps. I don't remember the journey from the entrance of the hospital wing to her room, really, just a few smeared images and whatever sound I can make out through the barrier that has gone up inside my head.

She lies there, and for a moment I think she's just sleeping, and when I touch her, she will wake up and smile at me and press a kiss to my mouth. I touch her and she is still warm and soft, and Tris… unmoving.

Christina sniffles and sobs. I squeeze Tris's hand, praying that if I do it hard enough, I will bring her back to me.

The Doctor, Dr. McNeil, who had been caring for her enters the room, tells us all to say our goodbyes. One by one they all leave the room until it is just Caleb and I. We look at each other and he seems to want me to go.

"I think you should leave," I say my voice stern as tears burn the backs of my eyes.

"She's my sister _Four_ and I'm staying with her."

"You already got to deliver her to her death once, now get out! She may have forgiven you, but I never will."

There is a look in his eyes, not fear, but knowing, and he kisses her cheek and tells her that he loves her and that she'll be with their parents now.

"Thank you," he whispers in her ear and then he walks out closing the door.

Dr. McNeil looks at me, "are you ready?"

"How long will it take?"

We can't be sure, we believe not very long we'll take her off the ventilator and she should just slip away. We gave her Peace Serum so she shouldn't be in any pain.

I stand silent as the doctor disconnects all the I.V.'s and wires, turns off all the machines until it is just the sound of the ventilator, then looks at me, "it's time."

"Can you take the tube out, so I can kiss her goodbye?"

"Of course, he nods then he flips the switch and pulls the tube from her throat, and leaves the room."

Her chest rises and falls so slowly and it's not enough for me to sit beside her, I climb into bed with her and pull her into my lap, stroking her hair. The tears fall so fast that they soak my face. All I can say over and over is I love you.

**TRIS**

The blood falls.

**TOBIAS**

My body writhes and I sob uncontrollably, and then she gasps. This is it, and her eyes flutter and open. She looks up dazed.

Her voice is small, quiet and crackling. A delirious, sleep laden giggle escapes her lips… "God, Four who died?"

Peace serum; and I'm crying tears of joy, still shaking uncontrollably holding her so tight. And she's in and out if consciousness giggling and her eyes tear and roll, but she's here, with me alive, we've made it.

**1 Year Later**

**TOBIAS**

They are silver and simple, no engravings. I didn't choose them, Tris did.

As we stand in the lobby of the Hub, I can't believe that we actually reached this day.

"Are you ready for this?"

"Ready," she says, grasping the train of her gown so it doesn't dust the floor, "I've been waiting my whole life for this moment."

We walk down to the hallway to a small room, the group that has already gathered it's small and simple but it's all we need.

My mother stands with Caleb, Christina, Zeke and Shauna, who sits in the wheelchair with a blanket over her lap. She has a better wheelchair now, one without handles on the back, so she can maneuver it more easily.

Matthew stands strumming his fingers on the wooden pulpit.

"Hi," I say, as I enter the room.

Christina smiles at me, and Zeke claps me on the shoulder.

"This looks like a Candor ceremony what's with the black and white." Christina smirks.

It's a tradition from the outside. We thought it might be nice. I say, but I guess is it kind of Candor, too late to change now."

Tris stands in the threshold and slowly walks in, and there before our closest friends, we profess our love for each other.

After a short ceremony the man at the pulpit pronounces us husband and wife, "You may now kiss the bride."

The room fills with wooping and hollering that is so ingrained in our Dauntless nature that we all can't help but smile.

"I love you Mrs. Eaton."

**TRIS**

"I love you too, Mr. Eaton, I say and I stand on tip toes grabbing his collar kissing him with every ounce of me.

We exit through the lobby and walk to the train depot. We don't have to run anymore and that's great news because a wedding dress and the spike heels Christina picked out for me aren't exactly train hopping gear. We get on the train and as it leaves the station I stretch my arm out holding the handles on either side of the doorway, lean out of the car as it turns, almost dangling over the street two stories below me. I feel a thrill in my stomach, the fear-thrill the true Dauntless love, in that moment I feel Tobias's arms wrap around my waist and he rests his head on my shoulder letting the wind whip through our hair.

"Hey," Christina says, standing beside the two of us looking at Tobias. "You think you can actually go through with this?

"We'll see, he says."

I turn looking at him over my shoulder, "you are defiantly going through with it you promised!"

The train comes to a stop; Tobias hops onto the platform, and takes my hand to help me off the train. At the top of the stairs Shauna gets out of the chair and works her way down the steps with the braces, one at a time.

We walk the streets to the zip line.

Ahead of us is the Hancock building. I haven't been this close in a long time.

We enter the lobby, with its gleaming, polished floors and its walls smeared with bright Dauntless graffiti, left here by the building's residents as a kind of relic. This is a Dauntless place, because they are the ones who embraced it, for its height and, a part of me also suspects, for its loneliness. The Dauntless liked to fill empty spaces with their noise. It's something I liked about them. Zeke jabs the elevator button with his index finger. We pile in, and Cara presses number 99.

**TOBIAS**

I close my eyes as the elevator surges upward, I feel Tris's arms wrap around my waist from behind, and her head resting on between my shoulders blades. I can almost see the space opening up beneath my feet, a shaft of darkness, and only a foot of solid ground between me and the sinking, dropping, plummeting. The elevator shudders as it stops, she stands in front of me kissing me full and long and lingering on the lips. I have to cling to the wall to steady myself as the doors open.

Tris touches my shoulder. "Don't worry, I've done this before, it's only a little scary the first time." I wide wild smile blooms across her face. I want to take her in my arms and run for the door and head off to a more private place. _"How come we are always around people,"_ I snicker.

She looks at me with so much passion in her eyes and says," Tonight it will be just you and I."

I nod, and wink at her as the air rushes through the gap in the ceiling, and above me is the sky, bright blue. I shuffle with the others toward the ladder. I find the ladder with my fingertips and focus on one rung at a time. Above me, Shauna maneuvers awkwardly up the ladder, using mostly the strength of her arms. Below me Tris is smiling up at me the last one to the roof.

I stare at the buildings along the marsh front, and my chest tightens, squeezes, like it's about to collapse into itself. We all stand with Zeke in silence as we take a small moment of to remember Uriah.

Then without warning Zeke runs across the roof to the zip line and attaches one of the man-sized slings to the steel cable. He locks it so it won't slide down, and looks at the group of us expectantly.

"Christina," he says. "It's all you."

Christina stands near the sling, tapping her chin with a finger.

"What do you think? Face-up or backward?"

"Backward," Matthew says. "I wanted to go face-up so I don't wet my pants, and I don't want you copying me."

"Going face-up will only make that more likely to happen, you know,"

Christina says. "So go ahead and do it so I can start calling you Wetpants."

Christina gets in the sling feet-first, belly down, so she'll watch the building get smaller as she travels. I shudder, gripping Tris's hand tightly.

I can't watch. I lock eyes with Tris as Christina travels farther and farther away. I can hear their cries of joy, like birdcalls, on the wind.

"Your turn, Four," says Zeke.

I shake my head.

**TRIS**

"Come on," I say. "Better to get it over with, right?"

"No," He says. "You go first. Please, I want to be able to see my beautiful wife at the bottom."

"I can't believe I just married Four, the Dauntless legend, and the biggest pansycake I know!"

"Hey, he smiles, shaking his head, I just don't think I can do it," he says, and though his voice is steady, his body is shaking all over.

I pull him in close twisting the collar of his shirt tight in my hands, so close that our noses touch, and I kiss him long and passionately. Holding him there until we are both weak in the knees and breathless.

"We'll go together."

**TOBIAS**

"Hey." Zeke puts his hands on my shoulders. "This isn't about you, remember? You made this one a promise," he says pointing to Tris.

I look over at her she's smiling now sitting on the edge of the Hancock Building looking out into the great expanse, no fear, just the way she looked the night she climbed the Ferris wheel with me.

"How should I get in?"

"Feet first," She says, "that way we can see each other."

I climb into the sling, my hands shaking so much I can barely grip the sides. Zeke tightens the straps across my back and legs, letting my arms free to wave in the wind.. I stare down Lake Shore Drive, swallowing bile, and start to slide just a bit so Zeke can attach Tris's zip line.

I take a deep breath, and watch as Tris climbs into the sling in front of me, unsteady in her white spiked heels, but gorgeous as ever. I look at her in all her strength and beauty, she leans down toward me face first so we are looking each other in the eyes. Zeke finishes up strapping her in. She clasps her fingers with mine.

Zeke gives us one last look and says, See you two love birds at the bottom, and releases the tether, sending us out, over Lake Shore Drive, over the city. I don't hear anything from her, not even a gasp. I want to take it back, but it's too late, she senses my fear and locks her eyes on mine and we are free falling together. I'm screaming so loud, I want to cover my own ears, but instead I grip her hands even tighter and I see her mouthing the words, "You are brave, you are strong, and you are mine." I feel all the emotions I have had living inside me this past year filling my chest, throat, and head.

The wind stings my eyes but I force them open, and I see her, beautiful, her hair dancing wildly in the wind laughing and smiling at me, she's all mine. Her dress swirling and flapping, she's flying like a bird.

I realize, then, that we have stopped moving, and as we come to a slow stop our cheeks brush one and other and I kiss her and I forget I'm hanging in the air.

The ground is only a few feet below us, close enough to jump down. The others have gathered there in a circle, their arms clasped to form a net of bone and muscle to catch me in. I press my face to the sling and laugh.

I then I look at Tris.

"You go first," she says.

I twist my arms behind my back to undo the straps holding me in. I drop into my friends' arms like a stone. They catch me, their bones pinching at my back and legs, and lower me to the ground.

Tris drops next, with the grace of a dove, _my angel sent back from heaven._

Christina blinks tears from her eyes and says, "Oh! Zeke's on his way."

Zeke is hurtling toward us in a black sling. At first it looks like a dot, then a blob, and then a person swathed in black. He crows with joy as he eases to a stop, and I reach across to grab Amar's forearm. Tris smiles at me, as we lock arms, and there is some sadness in her smile, no doubt she's remembering her first zip line with Uriah.

Zeke's shoulder hits our arms, hard, and he smiles wildly as he lets us cradle him like a child.

"That was nice. Want to go again, Four?" he says.

I don't hesitate before answering.

"Absolutely not."

**TRIS**

We walk back to the train in a loose cluster. Shauna walks with her braces, Zeke pushing the empty wheelchair, and exchanges small talk with Amar.

Matthew, Cara, and Caleb walk together, talking about something that has them all excited, kindred spirits that they are. Christina sidles up next to us and puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Eaton!" she says, and she hands us a small chocolate cake.


End file.
